Organic geochemical analysis of archaeological medicine pots from Northern Ghana. The multi-functionality of pottery

Sherds from pots found layered under a granite boulder in the Tong Hills of the Upper East Region of Northern Ghana seem, based on their deposition context to have been used for the preparation of medicines. Organic geochemical and isotopic analyses of these sherds and a modern day analogue reveal an n-alkanoic acid composition that is consistent with their being used in the preparation of plant derived substances. Isotopic analyses of the modern medicine pot indicate a contribution of n-alkanoic acids derived from plants that use C₄ carbon fixation, most likely maize, sorghum and/or millet suggesting that this pot was used for cooking C₄ based plant substances, perhaps, based on current analogy, staple porridge type food. The modern medicine pot could thus have had a prior use. The absence of C₄ plant residues in the archaeological sherds suggests that either staple foodstuffs differed radically to today, or, more likely, were not prepared in vessels that were to be used for medicinal purposes.     

The younging of Australian politics or politics as first career

Politics is usually seen as a second career and many elite studies include details of the background of MPs and draw conclusions from that data. But Australian politicians appear to be entering politics, reaching the ministry and retiring at younger ages. This article explores the accuracy of these perceptions for Australian federal politics and explores some of the implications of politics becoming a first career.     

The Value of an Ocean View: an Example of Hedonic Property Amenity Valuation

This paper presents a method of quantifying variation in quality in an amenity as a component of an hedonic property amenity valuation. The paper considers the residential land amenity of an ocean view, a situation where there is typically substantial variation in the quality of the view between sites. The method is effectively a scoring system based on three sub-characteristics of the ocean view. It is illustrated by application to a coastal housing subdivision in Western Australia. The results provide an estimate of the increase in the sale price of a site attributable to the quality of the site’s ocean view. The method has a potential role in coastal land use management decisions.     

From Blood to Oil: Mining,Cosmology, and Human Sacrifice in Central New Guinea

This article explores the intersection between cosmological history and mining geography among the Oksapmin of West Sepik Province. I show that the recent intrusion of mining activity into the local area has catalysed a revival of indigenous religious traditions to explain the occurrence and ownership of the precious materials believed to exist within the ground. Through an analysis of these parts of local cosmological history used to explain contemporary mining, I also seek to ethnographically and historically position the Oksapmin as a hybrid culture mutually influenced by the intersection of two overlapping regional cultural spheres: the Min cultural region, based on the ancestress Afek to the west, and a western highlands model based on sacrificial ritual to restore the vitality of the biocosmos, to the east. This builds upon earlier research done by anthropologists in the area that, on the one hand, portrays the Oksapmin as an anomalous ethnic group in the Min culture area and, on the other hand, that has stressed links between groups lying on either side of the upper Strickland Gorge. I also argue that the Oksapmin, Duna, and Bimin groups all shared a unique trans‐Strickland cosmological identity characterised by the pursuit of world renewal by means of human sacrifice.     

Defining and Contesting Environmental Justice: Socio-natures and the Politics of Scale in the Delta

Abstract:  This article examines a contemporary process intended to "identify a strategy for managing the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta as a sustainable ecosystem that would continue to support environmental and economic functions that are critical to the people of California" ( Delta Vision 2008 , http://deltavision.ca.gov/AboutDeltaVision.shtml ). Environmental injustices in the Delta are exacerbated by connected conflicts between knowledge and power, over the scale at which "environmental justice" and the "Delta" are understood through public policy. The rejection of environmental justice and the socio-natural in the Delta Vision process represents how contemporary policy processes are recreating and reenacting the power/knowledge dynamics that have defined the Delta, placed it on a path to ecological collapse and injected high levels of social and racial injustice in its landscape over the past 150 years. Our article combines an ethnographic and a historical geographical approach that contributes to the literature on environmental justice and scale and links with the literature on water governance and power to advance the task of defining environmental justice from the academic and policy perspectives.     

Reviews of Book

Geoffrey Blainey. A Short History of the World. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002. Pp. xi, 464. 827.50 (US). Reviewed by W. Warren Wagar

Alfred W. Crosby. Throwing Fire: Projectile Technology through History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 206. $26.00 (US). Reviewed by William H. Mcneill

Edwin G. Pulleyblank. Central Asia and Non-Chinese Peoples of Ancient China. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, Variorum, 2002. Pp. xii, 312. $105.95 (US). Reviewed by Nicola Di Cosmo

Sanjay Subrahmanyam. Penumbral Visions: Making Polities in Early Modern South India. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Pp. ix, 295. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by Chandra R. De Silva

Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert, eds. Gendering the Crusades. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi, 215. $18.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by Peter Edbury

Thomas T. Allsen. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xiii, 245. 860.00 (US). Reviewed by Jonathan Shepard

Haim Beinart. The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, trans. Jeffrey M. Green. Oxford and Portland: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002. Pp. xv, 591. $85.00 (US). Reviewed by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

H. G. Koenigsberger. Monarchies, States Generals, and Parliaments: The Netherlands in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xix, 381. $75.00 (US). Reviewed by Christine Kooi

Mary Elizabeth Ailes. Military Migration and State Formation: The British Military Community in Seventeenth-Century Sweden. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Pp. xiv, 192. $50.00 (US). Reviewed by Edward Furgol

Alastair Hamilton. Arab Culture and Ottoman Magnificence in Antwerp's Golden Age. London and Oxford: The Arcadian Library in association with Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 134. £60.00. Reviewed by Deborah Howard

HARRY G. GELBER. Nations out of Empires: European Nationalism and the Transformation of Asia. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001. Pp. ix, 263. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Fred Halliday

Leah S. Marcus, Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose, eds. Elizabeth I: Collected Works. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Pp. xxiv, 446. $40.00 (US). Reviewed by John Craig

Jeremy Black. European International Relations, 1648–1815. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp. xiii, 274. $22.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Jennifer Mori

Mlada Bukovansky. Legitimacy and Power Politics: The American and French Revolutions in International Political Culture. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002. Pp. viii, 255. $39.50 (US). Reviewed by Norman Hampson

Patricia Seed. American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians and the Pursuit of Riches. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Pp. xii, 299. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Sarah H. Hill

Patrick Griffin. The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689–1764. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001. Pp. xv, 244. $19.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by K. David Milobar

Thomas Philipp. Acre: The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City, 1730–1831. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Pp. 299. $17.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by DINA Rizk Khoury

Don H. Doyle. Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2002. Pp. xvii, 130. $24.95 (US). Reviewed by Enrico Dal Lago

Charles John Fedorak. Henry Addington, Prime Minister, 1801–1804: Peace, War, and Parliamentary Politics. Akron: University of Akron Press, 2002. Pp. xvii, 268. $44.95 (US). Reviewed by J. E. Cookson

Dáire Keogh and Kevin Whelan, eds. Acts of Union: The Causes, Contexts, and Consequences of the Act of Union. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001; dist. Portland: ISBS. Pp. 270. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Jim Smyth

Klaus Gallo. Great Britain and Argentina: From Invasion to Recognition, 1806-26. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp. vi, 195. $55.00 (US). Reviewed by Andrew S. Thompson

Rory Muir. Salamanca 1812. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. xiv, 322. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Richard Thorburn Herzog

William Barr, ed. and annotated. From Barrow to Boothia: The Arctic Journal of Chief Factor Peter Warren Dease, 1836–1839. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002. Pp. xi, 330. $49.95 (CDN). Reviewed by William R. Morrison

Timothy Brook and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, eds. Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. Pp. xiv, 444. $22.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by David Clayton

John Mason Hart. Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. Pp.xi, 677. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by Thomas Schoonover

Jeremy Black. Warfare in the Western World, 1882–1975. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 243. $19.95 (US)J paper; Jeremy Black, ed. European Warfare, 1815–2000. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp. vii, 247. $22.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by Craig Gibson

Paul B. Miller. From Revolutionaries to Citizens: Antimilitarism in France, 1870–1914. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 277. $21.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Martin Ceadel

David Healy. James G. Blaine and Latin America. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 2001. Pp. vii, 278. $39–95 (US). Reviewed by Edward P. Crapol

Rolf Hobson. Imperialism at Sea: Naval Strategic Thought, the Ideology of Sea Power, and the Tirpitz Plan, 1875–1914. Boston and Leiden: Brill, 2002. Pp. x, 358. $90.00 (US). Reviewed by John Beeler

Roderick R. McLean. Royalty and Diplomacy in Europe, 1890–1914. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xii, 239. $54.95 (US). Reviewed by David French

Philippe Chassaigne and Michael Dockrill, eds. Anglo-French Relations, 1898–1998: From Fashoda to Jospin. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp. xiii, 211. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Anthony Adamthwaite

Rebecca E. Karl. Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 314. $19.95 (US), paper. Reviewed by Joan Judge

Christopher Mckee. Sober Men and True: Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy, 1900–1945. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2002. Pp.285. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Geoffrey Till

Andrew Mango. Atatürk. London: John Murray, 2001. Pp. xiii, 666. £18.00, paper. Reviewed by Frank Tachau

Susan Solomon. The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. Pp. xxii, 383. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Bryan C. Storey

Jaroslaw Suchoples. Finland and the United States, 1917–1919: The Early Years of Mutual Relations, trans. Tadeuz Z. Wolahski. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2000; dist. Portland: ISBS. Pp. 221. $29.95 (US) paper. Reviewed by David W. McFadden

David Henry Slavin. Colonial Cinema and Imperial France, 1919–1939: White Blind Spots, Male Fantasies, Settler Myths. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Pp. xv, 300. $42.50 (US). Reviewed by ?William B. Cohen

David French. Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War against Germany, 1919–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xii, 319. 821.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by B. J. C. McKercher

Joseph Moretz. The Royal Navy and the Capital Ship in the Interwar Period: An Operational Perspective. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002. Pp. xxi, 292. $57.50 (US). Reviewed by Keith Neilson

Frances Gouda with Thus Brocades Zaalberg. American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920–1949. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002. Pp. 382. €31.90, paper. Reviewed by Gary R. Hess

György Péteri. Global Monetary Regime and National Central Banking: The Case of Hungary, 1921–1929, trans. Mario D. Fenyo. Boulder and Wayne: East European Monographs and Center for Hungarian Studies, 2002; dist. New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. x, 199. $30.00 (US). Reviewed by Jürgen Nautz

David Dutton. Neville Chamberlain. London and New York: Arnold and Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xii, 245. £12.99 paper. Reviewed by Joseph A. Maiolo

Steven T. Ross, ed. US War Plans: 1938–1945. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2002. Pp. ix, 371. $89.95 (US) Reviewed by Allan R. Millett

Radomir Luza with Christina Vella. The Hitler Kiss: A Memoir of the Czech Resistance. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. Pp. x, 295. $34.95 (US). Reviewed by Igor Lukes

Nicholas Tarling. A Sudden Rampage: The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia, 1941–1945. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. Pp. xv, 286. $36.00 (US). Reviewed by Nicholas J. White

Andrew J. Whitfield. Hong Kong, Empire, and the Anglo-American Alliance at War, 1941-45. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001. Pp. xii, 266. $65.00 (US). Reviewed by Chan Lau Kit-Ching

James McAllister. NO Exit: America and the German Problem, 1943–1954. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2002. Pp. viii, 283. $39.95 (US). Reviewed by Frank Ninkovich

Peter C. Kent. The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: The Roman Catholic Church and the Division of Europe, 1943–1950. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002. Pp. viii, 321. $45.00 (CDN). Reviewed by Owen Chadwick

Tim Jones. Postwar Counterinsurgency and the SAS, 1945–1952: A Special Type of Warfare. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2001. Pp. xxii, 233. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by Colin McInnes

Richard Overy. Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945. New York and London: Viking, 2001. Pp. xxii, 650. $32.95 (US). Reviewed by Norman J. W. Goda

Joy Damousi. Living with the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia, and Grief in Postwar Australia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. viii, 240. $60.00 (US). Reviewed by Bruce Scates

Sean M. Maloney. Canada and UN Peacekeeping: Cold War by Other Means, 1945-1970. St Catharines, Ont.: Vanwell Publishing, 2002. Pp. xiv, 265. $35.00 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Desmond Morton

Arnold A. Offner. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945–1953. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 626. $37.95 (US) Reviewed by Andrew J. Dunar

Frank Heinlein. British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945–1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002. Pp. xiii, 337- $57.50 (US). Reviewed by David Goldsworthy

Matthew Connelly. A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xviii, 400. $113.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Phillip C. Naylor

Martin Schain, ed. The Marshall Plan: Fifty Years After. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 2001. Pp. xiii, 297. $59.95 (US); Vibeke Sørensen. Denmark's Social Democratic Government and the Marshall Plan, 1947–1950, ed. Mogens Riidiger. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2001; dist. Portland: ISBS. Pp. 360. $47.00 (US), paper. Reviewed by Alan S. Milward

Sumit Ganguly. Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947. New York: Columbia University Press; Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001. Pp. 187. $18.50 (US), paper; C. Dasgupta. War and Diplomacy in Kashmir, 1947-48. New Delhi and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2002. Pp. 239. $44.00 (US). Reviewed by Anita Inder Singh

Hubert Zimmermann. Money and Security: Troops, Monetary Policy, and West Germany's Relations with the United States and Britain, 1950–1971. Washington and New York: German Historical Institute and Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi, 275. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Donald Abenheim

Jennifer Milliken. The Social Construction of the Korean War: Conflict and Its Possibilities. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001; dist. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Pp. xi, 258. $107.00 (CDN). Reviewed by K. M. Fierke

Percy Cradock. Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World. London: John Murray, 2002. Pp. xii, 351. £25.00. Reviewed by Richard J. Aldrich

The Military History Institute Of Vietnam. Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, trans. Merle L. Pribbenow; foreword by William J. Duiker. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Pp. xxvi, 494. $49.95 (US). Reviewed by Robert K. Brigham

Jeffrey Glen Giauque. Grand Designs and Visions of Unity: The Adantic Powers and the Reorganization of Western Europe, 1955–1963. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002; dist. Toronto: Scholarly Book Services. Pp. 326. $32.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Wolfram Kaiser

Robert D. Dean. Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001. Pp. x, 329. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Wesley T. Wooley

Piero Gleijeses. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002; dist. Toronto: Scholarly Book Services. Pp. xix, 552. $57.75 (CDN). Reviewed by Wayne S. Smith

M. E. Sarotte. Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, Dátente, and Ostpolitik, 1969–1973. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2001; dist. Toronto: Scholarly Book Services. Pp. xvii, 295. $32.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Helga Haftendorn

Wakaizumi Kei. The Best Course Available: A Personal Account of the Secret US Japan Okinawa Reversion Negotiations, ed. John Swenson-Wright. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. Pp. x, 367. $49.00 (US). Reviewed by Hugo Dobson

Delia M. Boylan. Defusing Democracy: Central Bank Autonomy and the Transition from Authoritarian Rule. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Pp. xiii, 295. $49.50 (US). Reviewed by Sylvia Maxfield

Ahmed Rashid. Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv, 281. $24.00 (US). Reviewed by Virginia Martin

François Furet and Ernst Nolte. Fascism and Communism, trans. Katherine Golsan. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Pp. xvii, 98. $35.00 (US). Reviewed by Martin Kitchen

Mark R. Beissinger. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 503. $80.00 (US). Reviewed by Taras Kuzio

Elinor C. Sloan. The Revolution in Military Affairs: Implications for Canada and NATO. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002. Pp. xi, 188. $24.95 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Joel J. Sokolsky

Michael Keren and Donald A. Sylvan, eds. International Intervention: Sovereignty versus Responsibility. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002. Pp. xi, 191. $26.50 (US), paper. Reviewed by Nicholas Onuf

Darren G. Hawkins. International Human Rights and Authoritarian Rule in Chile. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Pp. xiii, 259. $45.00 (US). Reviewed by Brian Loveman

Akira Iriye. Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. Pp. ix, 246. $29.95 (US). Reviewed by Chadwick F. Alger